“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” ~ Mark Twain

“I love cons,” blurted Ivy just the other night. Thankfully, no, she does not have a bad boy addiction at the age of three. Instead she is a syllable dropper. I suppose, in her mind, words can become too long, so she just drops the first syllable. Neosporin becomes sporin or computer becomes puter or McDonald’s becomes donalds. And she has fallen, not for convicts, but for pecans!

A majority of girls do not fall for convicts, thankfully. But there is some truth to this notion that nice guys finish last. For whatever reason girls love edgy and dangerous. When my Grandpa announced he wasn’t the marring type… well, that was perfect way to convince Granny to marry him! I am sure a geneticist will explain how this trait developed when we had to wrangle wild boars, but now the only boar we face is thin sliced.

The problem with sandwiches, in my mind, is the bread. I just can not stand floppy, on the very of soggy, bread. Of course Meg would say I am picky, but I assume my taste buds are more finely tuned. Still, at Christmas this year my parents gave Megan a sandwich press. Picture a George Foreman for sandwiches. It has two hot grills that press together on a sandwich, melting the cheese and toasting the bread. I have to say, it has totally revamped my lunches. No longer are sandwiches a let down, instead they have become one of my favorite meals.

Selling out is never good, but I doubt George Foreman expected this turn of events. He is a heavyweight champion boxer, who had a devastatingly hard hit. While he lost the heavyweight title to Ali, a fight that is still famous, he regained the title at the age of 45. Stepping away from ring he became a product endorser and now his name no longer refers to a person, but an electric grill.

Welcome to the ring of my mind. Admittedly it is more of circus, than boxing, ring. But the randomness is kind of like our lives, where we bounce from one thing to the next. Whenever I watch reruns I always laugh at the styles, of course in a few years people will do the same to us. We pursue the clothes and the gadgets to stay connected with this world. Not that it is bad, I am glad we no longer have to fast forward through a tape hoping to hit the right spot. Then rewinding, then fast forwarding… randomly, I have always wondered, is the forward actually faster? I suppose it would worth going back to the eighties for this knowledge…

But I digress. Which is the problem. We get so caught up with looking like the majority, with the clothes and gadgets, that we begin to act like the majority… The church needs to connect and communicate in today’s world. But this does not mean we are mirror reflection. Instead we take up the ideas and gadgets to show the world a new way to live. To walk the narrow path, bounding forward on the tension of grace and truth! And with our lives reveal how Christ would live in an ever-changing world!